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The Media and Public Opinion

Here are some articles in the JFK Assassination Questions section which deal with the media and public opinion:

Are There Factual Errors in Oliver Stone’s JFK?

The print and broadcast media’s attack on Oliver Stone’s JFK began even before the film had been released. A frequent accusation was that the film contained numerous factual errors. Although there were some inaccuracies in the film, the majority of the accusations were unfounded.

Read: Are There Factual Errors in Oliver Stone’s JFK?

Did Lee Harvey Oswald Get a Fair Trial?

Oswald was shot dead two days after the assassination, and did not receive a trial, fair or otherwise. A guilty verdict was reached by the media after the Warren Report laid out the case for the prosecution.

Read: Did Lee Harvey Oswald Get a Fair Trial?

Did a Secret Service Agent Kill JFK by Accident?

On the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination, the broadcast media heavily promoted the claim that a Secret Service agent, sitting in the car behind Kennedy, had shot him in the head by accident. This claim had been raised and refuted two decades earlier, and almost no-one with any detailed knowledge of the case believed it.

Read: Did a Secret Service Agent Kill JFK by Accident?

What Do People Think About the JFK Assassination?

The general public, despite obtaining a very large part of their information about the assassination from newspapers and television, has consistently tended to disbelieve the media’s message, that Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy.

Read: What Do People Think About the JFK Assassination?

Why Is the Media Coverage So Bad?

The consistently one-sided coverage of the JFK assassination by the mass media is due to the same institutional factors that make its coverage of other political events one-sided. In the case of the assassination, there is also the factor that the media does not want to be reminded that it got things wrong from the beginning.

Read: Why Is the Media Coverage So Bad?

What Does Noam Chomsky Say?

Noam Chomsky has played a large part in educating people about the ideological aspects of the system that provides them with information, of which the JFK assassination is a good example. Chomsky’s opinion of the JFK assassination is not about whether or not it was a conspiracy, but simply that it isn’t a significant political event.

Read: What Does Noam Chomsky Say?